GP practice update following cyber attack

Written on 15 May 2017.

GP practices in East Lancashire will be open as usual on Monday, but many are still bringing their IT and clinical systems back on-line following the cyber attack which took place on Friday 12 May 2017 and affected many organisations around the world.

Some practices will not yet have full access to patient records, prescriptions, appointment systems and in some cases telephone systems. However, all GP practices will be using well-tested contingency plans to ensure that services can continue to be provided.

The NHS is asking patients to continue to use the NHS wisely and remember that they can seek help and advice from a range of other sources, such as pharmacies or 111.

What you can do to help

Before contacting your practice, consider if it is urgent, could it wait or could you be helped by another service for example NHS 111 or your local pharmacy?

People who have GP appointments should turn up as normal unless they are contacted directly and told not to. Please do not ring your surgery to check as they will be extremely busy.

If you need to book an urgent GP appointment on Monday morning, you will be able to do so but please bear with us if you have difficulty in getting through to your practice and keep trying.

Please bear in mind that practices may be running more slowly than usual if they are unable to access some of their systems and the public are asked to be patient with staff.

All phone lines for GP practices are working normally, but some electronic call queuing systems may be affected. In this instance, practice phone lines will still work and patients will be able to ring their practice on the usual number, but they may experience some delays in getting through. If this happens, people are asked to keep trying to get through and thank them for their patience and understanding while NHS It technicians work to resolve the problem.